file://localhost => local: ?

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Mon, 21 Mar 1994 19:14:36 --100

I noticed a couple of problems with using the proxy caching gateway
from CERN. One was that I was getting core dumps. I tracked this down
some uninitialized pointers; I sent a patch to mosaic-x, but in case
others of you were trying to use Mosaic-2.2 with proxy, you might want
the patches I enclose at the end of this message.

Another more serious problem is that many HTML documents on the net
still use 'file:' instead of 'ftp:'. To get this to work with the
proxy gateway, I set things up so that

setenv file_proxy = http://myserver:/

and then set up the httpd.conf on the server so that:
Pass file:* ftp:*

This seems to work fine for dealing with these 'obsolete' URLs, except
for those folks who want to use file: to refer to local files on their
own machine.

Personally, I'd like to see a totally different URL constructed to
mean 'file on the client's workstation' for use with lynx, Mosaic,
etc. to get rid of the ambiguity. I propose using:

local:<local-host-pathname>

What do you think?

================================================================
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 94 17:23:38 EST
To: mosaic-x@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Subject: memory errors
From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>

After fidding with purify for a while, I found something that might be
causing the core dumps when using proxy gateways: most of the memory
management routines like StrAllocCopy etc. seem to not want
uninitialized pointers (they free them.)

These seem to fix the problem:

================================================================
in libwww2/HTAccess.c
================================================================
*** HTAccess.c.~1~ Tue Feb 8 13:20:55 1994
--- HTAccess.c Sun Mar 20 16:48:47 1994
***************
*** 138,144 ****
#define USE_GATEWAYS
#ifdef USE_GATEWAYS
{
! char *gateway_parameter, *gateway, *proxy;

/* search for gateways */
gateway_parameter = (char *)malloc(strlen(access)+20);
--- 138,144 ----
#define USE_GATEWAYS
#ifdef USE_GATEWAYS
{
! char *gateway_parameter = 0, *gateway = 0, *proxy = 0;

/* search for gateways */
gateway_parameter = (char *)malloc(strlen(access)+20);
***************
*** 174,180 ****

/* proxy servers have precedence over gateway servers */
if (proxy) {
! char * gatewayed;
StrAllocCopy(gatewayed,proxy);
StrAllocCat(gatewayed,addr);
using_proxy = YES;
--- 174,180 ----

/* proxy servers have precedence over gateway servers */
if (proxy) {
! char * gatewayed = 0;
StrAllocCopy(gatewayed,proxy);
StrAllocCat(gatewayed,addr);
using_proxy = YES;
***************
*** 185,191 ****
access = HTParse(HTAnchor_physical(anchor),
"http:", PARSE_ACCESS);
} else if (gateway) {
! char * gatewayed;
StrAllocCopy(gatewayed,gateway);
StrAllocCat(gatewayed,addr);
using_gateway = YES;
--- 185,191 ----
access = HTParse(HTAnchor_physical(anchor),
"http:", PARSE_ACCESS);
} else if (gateway) {
! char * gatewayed = 0;
StrAllocCopy(gatewayed,gateway);
StrAllocCat(gatewayed,addr);
using_gateway = YES;